


Date Night

by nadagio



Series: With A Little Help From My Friends [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkward Dates, First Dates, Fluff, Humor, Lance tries so hard, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 09:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10738980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadagio/pseuds/nadagio
Summary: Tonight is the night. Date Night. Lance tries to make sure everything is perfect for their first date, but... this is Lance and Keith we're talking about.---“Wow,” Keith says, eyes wide. “You look really nice.”“Oh my god,” Lance says, eyes wide. “Is that what you’re wearing?”





	Date Night

**Author's Note:**

> There's another fic that takes place before this, "Time to Intervene." You don’t have to read it to enjoy this one, but it will help you understand some of the details.

“Tonight’s the night, Mullet!” Lance yells upon bursting into the training room.

Keith promptly freezes and gets knocked on his ass by the gladiator. He shouts to “end training sequence” before standing with a huff.

“The… night?” Keith says slowly, eyebrows raised, and deactivates his bayard.

“Yes! The Night!” Lance repeats with emphasis, hands on hips, and waits for the excitement.

And waits. Keith crosses his arms with a frown.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Keith says.

Lance rolls his eyes and throws up his hands. “Uh, you know! The Night! Date night! Our date is tonight!”

“Oh.” Keith looks away. Still without the excitement that Lance expected. “I thought… you changed your mind?”

“What!?” Lance gasps. “Why would you think I changed my mind?”

Now Keith looks a bit angry, and Lance wonders if he’ll ever receive the positive reaction he hoped for. “It’s been two weeks, Lance! If you still want to do it, why the hell did you wait so long?”

“Well maybe you don’t know this, Keith, but there aren’t any flowers in space,” Lance snarks, rolling his eyes, “We’ve only stopped on three planets in the last two weeks, and it took until yesterday to find some that were 1. pretty enough and 2. would not kill anyone with their toxic pollen or something.”

“Flowers.” Keith’s deadpan delivery would be impressive if it wasn’t so aggravating. “You kept me waiting for two weeks… thinking you changed your mind… because you just had to have _flowers_?”

“Flowers are important, Keith,” Lance says seriously. “It’s not a date without flowers.”

“It _is_ a date without flowers!” Keith groans and covers his face with his hands. “It’s a date as long as we say it’s a date! I’d rather have a date two weeks ago than wait and suffer for _flowers_!”

“Well… maybe you should have said that two weeks ago then,” Lance says, pouting. They’re not just any flowers. They’re _pretty_ flowers dammit, and they were worth waiting for.

Keith starts snickering, and then giggling, and then outright laughing. And it’s not exactly the reaction Lance was going for, but it’s more positive than before so maybe it’s acceptable. Keith rubs his face before finally lowering his hands with a smile.

“Okay.” Keith says. “Tonight is date night. Do you have a plan, then?”

“Do I have a plan?” Lance scoffs. “Um. Of course! A plan to sweep you off your feet, a plan that’s going to knock your socks off and maybe your -”

“All right I get it! You have a plan. Should I meet you somewhere in the castle later?”

“No need! I’ll pick you up from your room at 1700 castle time. All you’ve gotta do is be there and be ready for a good time.” Lance winks.

“Sounds great.” And Keith actually seems sincere about that. “I’ll be there.”

“Great!”

They stand staring at each other for a few too many seconds.

“Um… I think I’ll keep training now?” Keith says, activating his bayard.

“Cool! Yup, you keep working that bod,” Lance gushes, backing out the door with some finger guns. “I’ve got places to be, plans to enact and such. _Hasta la_ later!”

“See you!” Keith calls out, adjusting his stance to fight before addressing the training room with, “Start training level four.”

* * *

“Hunk! My buddy! My bestest bro in the whole universe!”

“What do you want, Lance?” Hunk looks up from his special doodad project thing with a frown. Lance halts in his tracks.

“Want?” he asks, faux innocent. “Whatever makes you think I want something from you?”

Hunk’s response is a _look_ that despite being nonverbal, speaks volumes about his feelings. Lance shrugs, readily accepting the obviousness of his greeting.

“Okay, yeah. I want something.”

“I hope it doesn’t involve sneaking out of the castle or messing around with Shiro’s cosmetics. I’m already having horrible flashbacks just thinking about that one time -”

“Hunk, my man,” Lance cuts in. Gotta keep things focused. “I need you...” He pauses for added drama. “To cook some food for tonight.”

Hunk blinks, nonplussed. “Buddy. I cook food every night. You don’t need to ask me to do that.”

“No, dude, you don’t understand.” Lance waves his hands for emphasis. “I need you to cook something _special_. Whatever stuff you’ve got in reserve to make the most amazing, magical meal anyone’s ever tasted in the universe ever. _That_ ’s what I need. Ideally by, uh… 1700 or so.”

Hunk looks at him with dawning comprehension. “Lance… are you having your date with Keith tonight?”

“Wh-what?” Lance splutters. “I- um, I have no idea what you’re talking about, dude. I just happen to need a really nice meal, enough for two people, to be delivered to a location of my choosing by 1700 tonight.”

“Right. So this nice meal _won’t_ be eaten by you and Keith, alone together, on a date that you were coerced into having due to the matchmaking efforts of your giant robot lions?”

“I know you’re saying words, Hunk, but it all sounds like gibberish to me,” Lance says, keeping his face carefully blank. “Blue loves me and would never try to coerce me into anything.”

“You _do_ remember the incident two weeks ago where you and Keith were trapped in your lions…?”

“The incident that was resolved when Blue and Red finally gave up on getting us to talk about whatever and let us go? Yes of course I remember, Hunk. It was very memorable.”

Hunk shakes his head with a sigh. “You realize that everybody already -? You know what, nevermind. Because you’re my friend and I love you even with your odd quirks, I will cook you a really nice meal for two people by 1700, no questions asked.”

“You’re the best, Hunk!” Lance shouts, jumping on his buddy to give him the biggest thank you hug ever. Hunk smiles and pats him on the back.

* * *

“Is it done?” Lance asks under his breath, sliding into Pidge’s space with a casual look around.

“Do you have the goods?” Pidge asks, continuing to work on whatever techno-gadget she’s messing with today. Lance nods and removes the package from under his jacket, sliding it across the bench. Pidge looks over its contents carefully.

“It’s done,” she says finally, satisfied with the bargain. “Now go away, I’m busy.”

* * *

“Hey Coran, can you help me pick one?” Lance holds up a handful of memory chips. “I can’t read the descriptions.”

“Oh, of course!” Coran says, beaming. “Let me tell you about my favorite...”

* * *

“Shiro, can I borrow your eyeliner?” Lance asks, putting on his biggest and most soulful puppy eyes.

Voltron’s leader looks up from his data pad with a frown.

“That’s a lot to ask of a man, Lance,” he says. “Why do you want it?”

“I just… want to look extra nice today,” Lance mutters, and if anyone were to tell him he’s blushing right now he’d call them a dirty liar. Even if it’s true.

“...Oh. I get it.” Shiro smiles. “Okay. Just for tonight.”

* * *

“Allura, it’s an emergency!” he cries. “I need your help!”

“What is it, Lance?” The Princess looks up from her conversation with the mice, startled.

“I’m looking for your honest opinion here. This one?” Lance holds one garment up to his chest before switching with the other. “Or this one?”

* * *

By 1700 Lance is freshly showered, moisturized, and smelling nice with eyeliner neatly winged and looking super fine in a fitted Altean tunic and leggings. He arrives at Keith’s door carrying a vase of pretty red flowers and sporting a huge grin. At precisely 1700 castle time, he knocks.

Keith opens the door and for a moment both of them can only stare.

“Wow,” Keith says, eyes wide. “You look really nice.”

“Oh my god,” Lance says, eyes wide. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

Keith looks down at his usual attire of gray shirt and black pants with the weird fanny-pack looking belt. “...Yes?”

Lance waits, but Keith makes no move to apologize or change. “Weren’t you training in that earlier?”

“I showered,” Keith defends, like that makes up for the fact that his clothes are probably filthy with dried sweat. “Are the, uh… flowers for me?”

“Yes,” Lance says on autopilot, still a bit dazed. He holds out the vase of flowers he worked so hard to find. “Yes, these are for you. Here, have some flowers.”

“Thanks,” Keith says with a shy smile, taking the vase carefully and bringing the flowers toward his face for a sniff. He grimaces, letting out an involuntary “ugh.”

That reaction snaps Lance out of his daze very quickly. He frowns. “Not all flowers smell nice. These were chosen because they’re pretty. And red. I looked all over three planets for these flowers!”

“I’m sorry,” Keith says, proving that he at least has some tact. “They are really pretty. I like them. Thank you.”

“Good.” Lance pouts. “You’re welcome.”

“I’ll just...” Keith steps inside his room to place the vase on a shelf. And now they’re standing in his room. “So… are we going somewhere?”

“Right. Yes!” Lance straightens his back and offers his arm. “Shall we, good sir?”

Keith just stares at his arm, so Lance reaches out to grab Keith’s hand instead and pulls him into the hallway, an extra bounce in his step. Absolutely nothing is going to ruin this date for them, not dirty clothes, not even lackluster responses to his best romantic efforts!

* * *

They walk across the castle in silence for a while, Lance acutely aware the entire time of Keith’s hand in his. He hopes his palm isn’t too clammy. Keith wouldn’t hold his hand if it bothered him, right?

Lost in self-conscious thoughts like: ‘what if it really does bother him but he’s just holding it to be nice?’ and: ‘should I say something complimentary about his appearance? Would that be weird since this is how he always looks?’, Lance hardly notices when they arrive at their destination until they’re standing outside the door for nearly a minute.

Keith coughs. “...Is this where we’re going?”

“Yes! Yes it is!” Lance turns to him with a grin. “Now close your eyes!”

“Why?” Keith frowns.

“It’s a surprise!”

“But I’ll run into something.”

“Noooo,” Lance huffs, raising their linked hands. “I’ll guide you. Look it’ll be fine, just trust me.”

Keith sighs but obligingly closes his eyes. Lance opens the door but makes an error in judgment when he tries to pull them both inside at the same time. Turns out the doorway isn’t quite wide enough for them to walk side by side so Keith clips it with his shoulder on the way in. He grunts.

“Sorry, sorry! Keep your eyes closed!” Lance abandons Keith’s hand and grabs him by the shoulders, guiding him carefully to the center of the room. “Okay. Open your eyes!”

Keith doesn’t quite gasp, but he does gape a little after he opens his eyes and looks around.

It’s just a small empty room tucked away in one of the castle’s towers, but the large windows allow for a fantastic view of space. Strings of lights are attached to the center of the ceiling and drape to the walls and then down, creating an enclosed tent of soft, glowing sparkles. On the floor at their feet there’s a nest of pillows and blankets beside a large box containing their dinner. It’s amazing and fucking romantic and Lance knows it.

“Wow,” Keith breathes, “This is really cool.”

Lance puffs up and smiles, waiting for the fawning gratitude.

“...Is that my bedding?” Keith asks, and Lance deflates. Goddammit, Keith.

“Yes,” he frowns. “It’s everybody’s bedding. There’s a distinct lack of soft surfaces in this castle, Mullet. It’s all sharp angles and flat metal so I had to make do.”

“It looks comfy,” Keith assures, and toes off his boots before sitting down and making himself at home. He looks up with a soft smile and Lance’s heart melts just a little. “Join me?”

“...Yeah, okay,” Lance mutters. He pulls off his shoes and settles in close enough that their knees touch. It’s enough that Lance is smiling as he reaches for their dinner. He puts a covered plate in front of each of them. “Okay, cutie, prepare yourself for -”

Lance pulls off the covers and looks at the food, and he has no idea what it is or if it even has a name but it smells delicious and looks sort of like -

“- some super special space casserole!” he finishes.

“Looks good.” Keith picks up his plate and then pauses, looking around. “Um...”

Lance looks around too, and then inside the box. And then maybe he panics a little. “Where are the sporks?” he moans. “How are we supposed to eat this without utensils!?”

“Well...” Keith hesitates only a moment before reaching in with his fingers and picking up a small piece of the space casserole, tilting his head back and dropping it in his mouth. He chews and hums. “That works. This _is_ really good.” He takes another bite.

“But -” Lance sputters. “We don’t have napkins either!”

Without a word, Keith swallows his food and raises an eyebrow, looking Lance in the eyes as he brings dirty fingers to his mouth and slowly – pointedly – sucks them clean. Lance swallows, mouth suddenly dry.

“That’s so gross,” Lance protests hoarsely. But also for some reason it’s so fucking _hot_.

“I’m hungry.” Keith shrugs. “And I guess I’m not afraid of a few germs.”

_That_ sounds like a challenge so of course Lance has to step up. He squirms. Reaches for the food. Hesitates. Takes a deep breath. And digs his fingers in the space casserole. The squishy texture makes him shudder but he toughs it out and takes the bite.

...It _is_ really good. God bless Hunk and his magical cooking powers. Lance moans and reaches for more. Keith snickers but Lance manfully ignores it.

They eat their food and look at the pretty lights or the stars outside, sometimes meeting eachother’s eyes and looking away just as quickly.

“So...” Keith says when he’s about halfway through his plate. “Should we... talk or something?”

The word “talk” brings back a horrible flashback of their time stuck in the lions, but Lance pushes the feeling away. He shrugs.

“We can. You got something in mind to talk about?”

“Not really. It just seems like something you’re supposed to do. On a date. Get to know each other, right?”

“I think we’re a bit past that stage, though,” Lance says. “We already know each other.”

“We don’t know everything,” Keith insists. “There’s plenty I don’t know about you.”

“Like what? What do you want to know?”

“Um…” Keith thinks for a minute, taking a couple bites of food. “Did you shoot guns a lot back on Earth?”

“What?” Lance laughs, nearly knocking over his plate in the process. “That’s your big ‘getting to know you’ question?”

“I’m curious,” Keith says. “Your bayard is a rifle.”

“And yours is a sword, did you train as a samurai?” Lance snickers.

“I’m serious.” Keith sighs. “You’re a good shot, that has to come with practice.”

Lance squirms a bit, face flushed. He shrugs. “I mean… not a lot? Sometimes my dad and I would go to the range, something for us to do together, just us. And I’ve played sports that need good hand-eye coordination, so maybe that helps.”

“What sports?” Keith asks, and looks genuinely interested. Lance studies his food.

“A lot of baseball,” he says. “Sometimes some basketball with my friends but not on a real team.”

“That’s cool. I was never into the idea of team sports, so I only played during gym class.” Keith eats the last bite of his food and swallows before saying, “I’m not even sure if I can remember the rules.”

“Maybe we can fix that,” Lance thinks out loud, polishing off his own food. “Find something resembling a ball and bat, or a ball and hoop. Get the whole team involved. We’d have to make some adjustments for baseball, but I bet we can figure something out.”

“Sound fun,” Keith says, getting to work cleaning off his fingers with his tongue. Lance stares. “Thank you for dinner, Lance. I know Hunk cooked, but thank you for arranging it. It was nice.”

“Huh?” Lance startles. “Oh no, don’t thank me yet, we’re not done!” Keith looks at the box that is empty of any other food. “I mean, dinner is done. But our date isn’t.”

“It isn’t?”

“Oh no!” Lance grins. “I was able to find a movie after all! Or, well, some sort of Altean holodrama that’s like a movie. The projector is right -”

Lance pauses and stares at his hand, frozen in midair reaching for the projector he tucked away earlier. His fingers are still a mess from digging around in his food. “Um.”

Keith reaches for Lance’s dirty hand and brings it up towards his own mouth. “You want help with that?” he asks with a smirk. He is too smooth. Too sexy. Goddammit, Keith.

“O-okay!” Lance squeaks, gaping as Keith wraps his lips around his fingers and sucks. Lance trembles. Keith’s tongue gets involved and Lance whimpers.

A near-traumatizing minute later, Lance’s hand is relatively clean (of food) and he’s still just staring dumbly as Keith scoots closer into his personal space.

Keith leans in, eyes dark, and opens his mouth to whisper with a smirk, “You mentioned a movie?” Lance jumps.

“Yes! Yes I did! Coran says it’s a good one. And super romantic.” Lance pulls away and fumbles with his Keith-defiled hand to find the projector. He then spends a long moment trying to remember how to turn it on. “Right. Um… here, I think?”

Luckily it turns on just fine, and now there are foot-tall 3-dimensional images of Altean figures gathered around the projector to act out a scene. Lance quickly places the projector on the floor a yard or two away and then crawls back into the nest of bedding.

“Coran says the dubs are generated automatically for us in our own language,” Lance whispers, pulling a blanket around his shoulders and wondering if he should put an arm around Keith. Keith takes that decision out of his hands by placing an arm around _Lance_ instead. Lance snuggles into Keith’s side with a smile.

“That’s cool,” Keith says.

“Yeah.”

Ten minutes later, they’re watching with wide eyes. The scenes keep shifting without explaining where they are or what they’re doing, most of the people are only in one scene so they’re not sure who the main characters are, and all those references to colors _seem_ important but they don’t know why.

“Lance, I have no idea what’s happening. Do you?” Keith says quietly.

“No,” Lance admits. “But it’s kind of fascinating? Like a car wreck, I can’t look away. You okay to keep watching?”

“I guess, yeah.”

So they keep watching, and thirty minutes in things take a darker turn.

“Oh my god, did she just -?” Lance gasps.

“Kill him? Yeah, I think so. It kind of came out of nowhere, didn’t it?”

“There’s so much blood...” Lance grimaces. He’s not a wuss, but really he’s not a fan of needless gore either.

“Is that… some kind of ritual?” Keith says.

“That’s definitely some kind of magic, I think?”

They’re both cringing but they keep watching in horrified interest, except then -

“What the fuck!?” they shout in unison, averting their eyes.

“Um. I think... I’m done,” Lance stutters, crawling forward quickly to turn off the projector. They’re left in sudden silence. “...I’m sorry, Keith. That was awful.”

“Not your fault Alteans were weird,” Keith says. “Maybe they have some movies that aren’t so… _that_.”

“But I didn’t bring any of the other memory chips,” Lance says, gripping his hands tight.

“Oh.”

Lance glares at his hands and repeats, “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s all right,” Keith says, crawling toward him to put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not,” Lance objects, looking up. “I ruined it!”

“Ruined… it?” Keith asks, confused. “Ruined what?”

“Our date! It’s ruined!” Lance slams his fists on his thighs. “You didn’t like the flowers, and I forgot to bring the sporks, and then this stupid movie was fucking _awful_...”

Keith places a hand on top of his. “Nothing’s ruined, Lance -”

“It _is_! It was supposed to be a big, romantic moment and now it’s just a mess!”

“It’s perfect because you’re here,” Keith says seriously.

Lance blinks. His mouth twitches. His eyes water… and he bursts out laughing.

“How -” Lance gasps for breath. “How can you -? That was so cheesy!”

Keith pulls away and crosses his arms with a huff. “Shut up, asshole. It’s true.” Lance shakes his head in denial and Keith sighs. “It is. I don’t need a big, romantic moment, Lance. Why is it so important to you that this date is perfect?”

“Because I need to impress you so you’ll go on another one!” Lance says, sobering quickly. “And if I manage to keep you from running away screaming or punching me in the face, I want you to look back on our first date as the perfect start to a perfect romance.”

Lance isn’t sure when agreeing to one date became hoping for more. When it became planning out the perfect relationship with Keith. But somewhere between that first moment of shock when he learned that Keith actually likes _him_ and this moment here and now... it did.

“Lance,” Keith says, taking his hand again. “You… want another date?”

“Yeah,” Lance mumbles, squeezing the other boy’s fingers with a frown. “Except I totally screwed everything up.”

“You didn’t.” Keith smiles and nudges his shoulder. “Honest. I don’t want perfect. I want _you_. And many more dates, even if things go wrong. And right now I’ve got you here, so… I’m happy.”

Lance flushes, rubbing his thumb over Keith’s knuckles, asking, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Keith moves closer. “You know what would make things even better, though?”

“What’s that?” Lance whispers, staring at Keith’s face so close to his own.

“A kiss,” Keith says with a smirk.

“Um.” Oh god. What if his breath smells from eating dinner? Does his mouth taste weird? Are his lips too dry?

“Lance...” Keith leans in closer.

“Uh huh?”

“Stop thinking so much,” Keith whispers against his lips, and then they’re kissing and it’s _perfect_.

...Right up until the saxophone music starts inexplicably blaring all around them out of nowhere.

They jump away from each other with matching yelps, looking around to find the source of the noise. But it’s no use. There must be speakers but they’re blending in with something like the air vents or -

“The lights?” Keith wonders out loud, and Lance gasps.

“Fucking _Pidge_!” he snarls. The timing is way too good to be coincidental, which means Pidge either used her magic programming skills to make it happen at the right moment (not impossible) or -

Lance stands to shout loudly over the music in the general direction of the ceiling, “If you’re watching us right now, I promise I will fucking _murder_ you!”

Keith is on the floor giggling, and Lance hauls him up by the arm to take him somewhere they can have some goddamned _privacy_. “Let’s do this somewhere else.”

“Wait!” Keith protests on the way out the door. “My bedding?”

“Good idea,” Lance grumbles, and they backtrack to pick up all the pillows and blankets until their arms are full of the soft material. Then they scram.

They end up in Lance’s room where they cuddle and kiss for the rest of the night, neglecting to return anyone’s bedding. Lance feels a little bad for Shiro and Allura, but can’t regret depriving Hunk, Coran, or Pidge of a good night’s sleep. Hunk forgot the sporks, Coran recommended an awful movie, and Pidge is hell spawn in tiny human form. They deserve to suffer.

But none of that matters to Lance very much when Keith is cradling him in his arms and placing soft kisses on his lips and cheeks. All thoughts of disastrous first dates and terrible friends are far from his mind. Lance can only think about how good things are right now. How perfect.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Extra:**  
>  Pidge: How was your date last night? Enjoy the ambiance?  
> Lance: Pidge, I swear, if you were watching us...  
> Pidge: Eww, no. I don't need to watch you guys be gross. You did get my extra gift, though, right? Because it would be kind of sad if you finally got a date and couldn't even-  
> Lance: YES THANK YOU GOODBYE.
> 
> I like the headcanon that Alteans have really awful taste in movies and other media, or at least that the humans on board would be missing all the cultural context that would make it understandable.
> 
> I hope this made you laugh and ‘aww’. Thanks for reading!


End file.
